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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →More than half of the established homes sold in Queensland in the June quarter went to owner-occupiers who already owned a home. That is the estimate of the property professionals surveyed by NAB for its Q2 2026 Residential Property Survey, published on Wednesday 22 July 2026, which puts that group's share of Queensland's established market at 52.7 per cent.
The survey also asked what is holding buyers back. Across most of the country the answer changed this quarter, with interest rates overtaking prices as the biggest constraint. Queensland was the exception: here, NAB reports, the level of prices still ranked higher. The same professionals expect Queensland house prices to slip 1.5 per cent over the next 12 months, a view that is an expectation and not a forecast by the bank.
What the survey is
NAB surveys people who work in the property market, which it describes as property professionals. The June quarter edition was conducted between 26 May and 23 June 2026 and drew about 244 responses. It asks them how the market in their state is performing, what they expect for prices and rents, who is buying, and what is getting in buyers' way.
The answers are informed opinion. They are not sales records, and the shares of buyer types are respondents' estimates of the market they see, averaged together. With around 244 responses nationally, the Queensland figures rest on a small group. They are most useful for the broad picture and for comparing one quarter with the next.
The headline measure, the NAB Residential Property Index, fell sharply. Nationally it dropped to +14 in the June quarter from +58 in March, under its long-run average of +22. Queensland's index fell from +68 to +24. A positive number still means more respondents see the market as favourable than unfavourable, and Queensland's reading remains above both the national figure and the long-run national average. The size of the fall, 44 points in three months in Queensland as well as nationally, shows how quickly professional sentiment turned after the Federal Budget in May.
Related readInterstate arrivals to Queensland slow to 14,718 in the year to MarchWho bought established homes
The survey splits buyers into five groups. In Queensland's established housing market in the June quarter, respondents estimated the shares as follows.
NAB Residential Property Survey Q2 2026, published 22 July 2026. Respondents' estimates; the five shares add to 98.8%, the balance being other buyers.
Two things stand out. The first is the weight of people who are moving within the market: upgraders, downsizers and those relocating. They are the buyers most likely to be selling a home as well, which ties their purchase to how quickly their own property sells.
The second is the first-home group. Added together, first home buyers who will live in the property and those buying their first property as an investment make up 29.2 per cent of established sales in the survey's estimate. About one in three of them falls in the second category, sometimes called rentvesting: buying where the numbers work and renting where they prefer to live.
Local investors who already own property accounted for 15.0 per cent. NAB's national figures show how much that group has pulled back: across Australia, local investors' share of established sales fell to 13.7 per cent in the June quarter from 19.8 per cent in March. Queensland's 15.0 per cent sits a little above the national figure. The survey as reported gives no March quarter figure for Queensland alone, so the size of the state's own decline cannot be stated.
Price is still the main hurdle in Queensland
On constraints, the report is direct. Interest rates, it says, are now the biggest constraint for established home buyers nationally, pipping the level of prices this quarter. That was the case in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Prices still ranked as the higher constraint in Queensland, and a lack of stock remained the key concern in Western Australia.
Related readQueensland ranks second least affordable for home loans, REIA findsThe Queensland result fits the path the state's market has taken. Prices here kept rising through a period when Sydney and Melbourne values were already falling, so the price a buyer must meet has been the first obstacle, ahead of the cost of the loan. Other measures agree: the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey published on 14 July put Queensland's "time to buy a dwelling" reading at 82, below New South Wales at 90 and Victoria at 91, and attributed the gap to markets where prices are still rising.
The two constraints are closely linked. A buyer's borrowing capacity depends on the interest rate a lender applies, and the price decides whether that capacity is enough. When respondents in three states rank rates first and those in Queensland rank prices first, they are describing the same affordability squeeze from two sides.
Foreign buyers: a small share, smaller than in the south
Buyers from overseas are a minor part of the Queensland market on the survey's numbers. Respondents estimated foreign buyers at 1.9 per cent of established home sales in the state and 3.2 per cent of new housing sales in the June quarter.
| State | Established homes | New housing |
|---|---|---|
| Victoria | 2.8% | 14.2% |
| New South Wales | 2.4% | 8.8% |
| Western Australia | 2.3% | 4.4% |
| Queensland | 1.9% | 3.2% |
NAB Residential Property Survey Q2 2026. Respondents' estimates.
Queensland has the lowest share of the four in both columns. The gap is widest in new housing, where Victoria's estimated 14.2 per cent is more than four times Queensland's 3.2 per cent. Nationally, foreign buyers' share of established sales fell to 2.2 per cent from 3.4 per cent in the March quarter.
For a local buyer, the practical point is that competition from overseas purchasers is not a large factor in most Queensland sales on this evidence. It is likely to be concentrated in particular new apartment projects and not spread across the suburbs.
Related readReading a Queensland title search: owners, mortgages, easements, covenantsThe market for new homes
The buyer mix is different for newly built housing. In Queensland, respondents estimated that owner-occupiers other than first home buyers took 39.2 per cent of new housing sales, first home buyers who will live in the home 23.3 per cent, local investors 22.2 per cent, first home buyers purchasing as investors 11.3 per cent and foreign buyers 3.2 per cent.
Investors and first home buyers play a larger part here than in the established market. First home buyers of both kinds add up to 34.6 per cent of new sales, against 29.2 per cent of established sales, and local investors account for 22.2 per cent against 15.0 per cent.
Asked what constrains new housing development in Queensland, 67 per cent of respondents named construction costs, 50 per cent delays in getting permits, 42 per cent a lack of development sites and 33 per cent interest rates. Those are constraints on supply, and they matter to buyers because they limit how many new homes come to market and at what price.
What respondents expect for prices and rents
The survey's expectations are the part most easily misread. Respondents were asked where they think house prices in their state will be in one and two years. For Queensland, the average answer was a fall of 1.5 per cent over the next 12 months, and a rise of 0.7 per cent over two years. Three months earlier, the same question drew an expected rise of 3.8 per cent over 12 months.
That is a marked change of view, but Queensland's expected decline is among the mildest. Respondents expect falls over 12 months of 4.5 per cent in Victoria, 3.2 per cent in New South Wales, 1.1 per cent in South Australia and 0.4 per cent in Western Australia. NAB's own economists, separately, expect the national capital city dwelling price to fall by around 2 per cent in 2026.
Rents are expected to go the other way. Queensland respondents look for rents to rise 4.6 per cent over the next 12 months, up from an expected 3.0 per cent in the March survey, and 5.4 per cent over two years. Nationally, expected rental growth over 12 months rose to 3.9 per cent from 3.1 per cent.
These are opinions about the future, gathered in late May and June
The price and rent figures are the average expectation of about 244 property professionals nationwide. They record the mood of the industry in the weeks after the Budget. They are not predictions of what any home will be worth.
NAB's chief economist, Sally Auld, said on the bank's news site that housing-related inflation is more complicated than house prices alone. Falling price expectations alongside rising rent expectations are part of what she was pointing to: fewer investors buying can ease competition for purchasers while tightening supply for tenants.
What it adds up to for a Queensland buyer
Put together, the survey sketches the field a Queensland buyer is entering this winter. Most rival purchasers for an established home are other households buying to live in it. Investors are fewer than they were in the March quarter across Australia. Overseas buyers are a small presence. The people who work in the market expect prices to be slightly lower in a year, and they still regard the price itself as the first thing standing between a Queensland household and a purchase.
The September quarter edition of the survey will show whether the buyer mix keeps shifting toward owner-occupiers, and whether Queensland joins the other large states in naming interest rates as the main constraint.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
